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Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

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Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#401

Post by ignoramous »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #121
ignoramous wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every puri.sm I'd wager there is a SilentCircle. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12047219

How is this different than any other industry? Most start-ups fail, security industry or otherwise.

Sorry I wasn't elaborate. What I was trying to say was SilentCircle had the money, the people, the pedigree, the vision and yet failed. Privacy is a hard sell and one of the reasons is that it is expensive and comes at a cost of inconvenience, unfortunately, given then way BigTech has shaped its offerings over the years.

puri.sm may yet execute well and take-off but privacy remains a seriously hard problem to tackle (due to govt, ad-net, big-tech) yet easily a problem to get passionate about.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#402

Post by jsgo »

freehunter wrote: post #290
killjoywashere wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously... Even Microsoft came around to putting Office on Android. Apple? Nowhere to be seen.

Microsoft only put Office on Android after their own mobile OS failed. It's not like it was some super altruistic effort on their part.

unfortunate (but necessary) move, considering part of the reason it failed is because Google yanked support (and later certification of Microsoft's implementations of) Google services like YouTube.

It wasn't only the lack of Google apps mind you, but they do have a certain degree of kingmaking ability with whether they put apps on your platform or not.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#403

Post by babypuncher »

xorcist wrote: post #371
asutekku wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people actually want to root their phones? What kind of advantage does it give to the general user, who flaunts the fact you can do that on android? What can you do now, increasing the usability of a phone, that you couldn’t without a root? Honest question, because I have absolutely no idea.

Backups, for starters. Personally I value being able to restore the software to a known state in case something happens. Not having any way to back up my data was kind of a deal breaker otherwise. Firewalling traffic and tunneling also requires root. I believe it is a popular way to block ads and analytics, either with a hosts file or iptables.

iPhones can be backed up to iTunes or iCloud or both.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#404

Post by babypuncher »

iamnothere wrote: post #297
fastball wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the ability to easily root your own phone is going to make you more secure is laughable.

Being able to root the device is pretty important for security research. It's much harder to do an in-depth analysis of a system without root access. Apple products have had plenty of bugs leading to security issues, and I'd rather make it easier for researchers to discover these.

Every iOS device gets cracked relatively quickly, there's nothing stopping security researchers from doing their work.

For the vast majority of users this isn't a concern or even a good idea.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#405

Post by vid »

nadc wrote: post #305
davidy123 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally, they would work with Solid, a standards based approach to decentralized identity, to provide a general solution, rather than creating yet another new one.

I find Solid incredibly interesting academically, and watch it with interest, but I'm sadly skeptical that it'll find traction— it requires both substantial development resources (as apps need to be rewritten to its standards) and a change in consumer behaviour. I'm reminded of this Steve Jobs response from WWDC 1997 [1]: > One of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience a…

I don't disagree with what you're saying. But it's also reasonable to focus just on working with those who see the same thing you do, and develop widely usable systems based on that. That's where everything comes from, basically. If we keep pandering to the lowest common denominator, the results will always be compromised.

GDPR is having a big impact on these discussions. Organizations don't want to own data any more. It would be a true tragedy of more collapsing of the net if it came down to using one of a few big providers, without alternate options. Yet we're seeing this happen, since many sites now only offer login via social media, with no option via email. IMO, these sites should be boycotted.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#406

Post by banachtarski »

pwinnski wrote: post #267
oceanplexian wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that hard to deliver a 15Mb .ipa file to someone's iDevice, that Apple needs a 30% cut of every transaction to do so? It's not incredibly difficult to operate a trusted digital app sales ecosystem at all. It's just that there is no competition. If Apple wasn't a monopoly, I have no doubt someone like Amazon could deliver a service that undercut Apple by 90% and deliver the same exact "trusted" ecosystem.

Amazon Appstore exists[0]. It also takes a 30% cut. As a comment above[1] highlights, it is more expensive than it might seem to operate the ecosystem. It always seems like one should be able to reproduce a popular service in a weekend, but the details (and scale) are tricky. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1002999431 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20093819

Right Google Apple and Amazon all take exactly %30.

Seems like a fair competitive market. /s

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#407

Post by banachtarski »

scarface74 wrote: post #127
banachtarski wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know when I'll believe it? When the un-screw up their app store which vastly incentivizes the development of free-to-use ad-driven apps that prey on user tracking data over premium alternatives. Ad-based revenue has a higher value proposition to developers because it dodges the inane anachronistic 30% tax. "Privacy" first is an utter illusion when the majority of apps approved in this closed ecosystem that ostens…

Developers aren’t doing ad supported apps because of the 30% “tax”. Did software sell with ads when they had to pay physical retail stores 60% for distribution? They do ads because people are too cheap to buy apps.

If they wanted, they could ban ads, end of story. This would be the equivalent of the retail distribution. They could open up their platform so people could install software outside of the app store.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#408

Post by nadc »

vid wrote: post #405
nadc wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Solid incredibly interesting academically, and watch it with interest, but I'm sadly skeptical that it'll find traction— it requires both substantial development resources (as apps need to be rewritten to its standards) and a change in consumer behaviour. I'm reminded of this Steve Jobs response from WWDC 1997 [1]: > One of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience a…

I don't disagree with what you're saying. But it's also reasonable to focus just on working with those who see the same thing you do, and develop widely usable systems based on that. That's where everything comes from, basically. If we keep pandering to the lowest common denominator, the results will always be compromised. GDPR is having a big impact on these discussions. Organizations don't want to own data any more…

Relatedly, it seems Apple is planning to make 'Sign in with Apple' mandatory for every iOS developer using any third party sign in: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18651344/wwdc-2019-apple-f...

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#409

Post by jethro_tell »

yholio wrote: post #48
zimpenfish wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the software development cost of these systems [...] is not that huge > probably be created for less than a billion dollars I don't think I've worked anywhere that's put more than $500M into a single software project. That is "huge" cost. (Except maybe Yahoo! but even then I'm not sure.)

Something like an Android clone is a conglomeration of many, many different projects.

getting an OS up an running on a phone is easy, its the backend services and building an eco system that will/has sunk a few companies that have attempted it.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#410

Post by rootusrootus »

TomVDB wrote: post #326
freehunter wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Apple phones really more expensive though? Yes you can get cheaper Android devices, but the hardware that competes against iPhones still costs roughly the same as an iPhone. A Galaxy S10 costs $900, an iPhone XS costs $999. Cloud storage from Google costs $10/TB, iCloud storage costs $10/TB. Apple Music costs $10/mo for one person, $15 for families. Google Play Music costs $10/mo for one person, $15 for families.…

It’d be interesting to review today’s lowest iPhone (a $450 iPhone 7) against similarly priced Android phones. My hunch is that you’ll still get much more !/$ for Android.

My experience has been that Android phones have lower capital costs and higher TCO. I buy an iPhone, keep it a few years, sell it for a few hundred bucks and buy another. I buy an Android phone, Google cuts the price by half six months later, and within two years the resale value of the phone is zero. One of the reasons I stopped buying Android phones was because it was an expensive habit.

But ... if you keep your phones until they literally fall apart, the economics are different. Though over a span of, say, five years, it doesn't really amount to much either way.

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